Monthly Archives: October 2009

Eating Etiquette

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Fun Fact: In the mall food courts here, you do NOT have to clean up after yourself. You can leave your trays on the table, and there are people who will come and bus your table. It’s pretty awesome and quite laziness-inducing.

There is also no sense of personal boundaries when it comes to eating. Almost all the tables here are big and family-styled. You kind of just create your own area and your companions depending on the direction your body is facing. Where there’s a seat in any restaurant or food court, feel free to sit. Even if it’s at a table for four, and there are already three people sitting there and chatting away. Just plop your tray down, put your head down, and dig in. They won’t mind at all. Really. Just don’t participate in their conversation. Now that would be considered rude.

Love Is In The Air

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Teaching my junior high class is really great for my ego. Seriously, how could you not feel good when you have boys (read: plural with an S) professing their love for you on a daily basis.

In the middle of asking a question such as “What two parts does every sentence have?”, I get answers like, Naming Part and.. and.. Oh, Teacher, you are so beautiful and pretty and.. and.. beautiful. (Due to their limited vocabulary, they run out of adjectives pretty quickly.)

or

What is the answer to #3? Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit walk on the _______? (The answer is floor. But some of the students mispronounce it and say “flower” instead.)

which then inspires…

Teacher! You are a flower. I like flowers. You are a big, pretty flower.

Then after class, three or four of the these boys, especially the ones not from my class, will come up to me and push and shove each other to the front and shout at me, “Teacher Teacher, he love you. He think you pretty.”

Oh really? Why, thank you. But if the subject is he, what do the verbs love and think need? That’s right, S!

Remember fellas, if you want to impress a girl, proper grammar is very important.

Fun Fact: Middle school boys, especially my seventh graders, are a lot more touchy-feely than what I remembered when I was in 7th grade in the States. They will hold hands in class (to be funny or mock me) and hug on each other or put their legs on top of each other. Not in a gross way, but in friendly camaraderie, like it’s perfectly okay LIKE when girls do it all the time. Hey, if girls can do it, then heck, why not boys?

Mah-La Mah-La

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I had my first mala hot pot this weekend. We went to this place called 辣中間 (translation: spicy in the middle?). It’s all-you-can-eat hot pot with the choice of clear soup or mala soup to cook your food in, or in our case, you can get both.

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There are unlimited ingredients that you can get ranging from all sorts of meats, seafood, vegetables, and other hot pot goodies. The drinks are also unlimited, as well as dessert which consists of fruit and Haagen-dazs ice cream. Best of all, you get all of this just for the low (weekend meal) price of $495NT ($15USD)!

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There’s a two-hour limit for your meal, but oh my goodness, a lot of food can be consumed in two hours. Usually after a meal like this, I don’t need to eat for a week.

We went to the DunHua location, but I think they have four other locations throughout Taipei.

辣中間(敦南店)

台北市大安區敦化南路二段81巷29號

(DunHua South Rd. Section 2 Lane 81 No. 29)

02-2700-3038


Biking

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Today was a great weather day, which we haven’t had for awhile since it is typhoon season and all. We took advantage of the breezy, partly cloudy day and went bike riding along the Keelung River by the Dazhi Bridge. You can rent bikes at these rental shops scattered all along the trail for $60NT ($1.85USD) an hour. They have bikes for all ages and tandem ones too! (For more info, click here.) It was a gorgeous day, and we stopped to see some hardcore fish jumping at breakneck heights. I suppose they were practicing to be great whites one day. They were really big fish, which Michael will demonstrate exactly how big.

Just Roll With The Punches

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After the past few days, I’m feeling much better. Whew. I haven’t gotten the flu in so many years. I was pretty on top of getting vaccines in college so it had been awhile. It doesn’t make it any funner though. Anyways, today, my strength and appetitie returned, so I was able to get out and get some air.

Michael & I went walking through the park by the river, and we stopped by a multicultural soccer game. We watched for a few minutes, and then out of nowhere, a kick went sour, and a guy threw a punch at a small Asian guy and clocked him in the face. We sat there in shock. The teammates started gathering and pulling punching-guy back while the guy that got punched just kind of stood there looking at punching-guy. Then it was over. Punching-guy was thrown out of the game, and as he was walking off the field, the guy that got punched went over and grabbed his hand in an attempted handshake.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Can someone explain the thinking behind this from a guy perspective or even from an Asian guy’s perspective? Why didn’t Asian guy do something? Besides the fact that the other guy looked mean and was considerably bigger than him. Come on, small Asian guy, be assertive! Why didn’t his teammates do anything either? Where’s the brotherhood? And why shake his hand afterwards, as in a “Thanks for that because I totally deserved that hit in the face”?